travelling with shokouh

it did not really warrant so much laughter on our part but that is what happened when the old man responsible for cleaning gulhane park in istanbul saw shokouh taking a photo of me perched on the stone lion and said ''sit together i will take one of both of you.  it will be beautiful''   beautiful it was as he carefully took aim with the camera and took a closeup of himself and his discerning eye.  we did not tell him we just said ''thank you.''    our laughter afterwards was caused by him but it was not directed at him.  ''thank you very much'' we said.  he was a very nice helpful man.  shokouh said he was adorable.  perhaps he was not used to using cameras.

perhaps there had been a tension in the air there, for how could such a little thing like him holding the camera the wrong way round and taking a photo of himelf, believing that he was taking a photo of us, make our laughter tumble out like that onto the street?  the cause.  shokouh asks me the definitions of words and i carefully provide them.  that is why she calls me mister dictionary.  actually it is mainly me who offers the definitions unbidden, according to my experience of standard english usage.  infantile.  if you were to describe someone as childish you would be referring to the immature, selfish characteristics that children sometimes display.  if shokouh knew this, she would probably not describe herself as childish, then, but child-like, which is a neutral term, simply meaning like a child, and possibly including such positive traits as innocence and trustfulness.  i explain to shokouh that words like defecate are used by almost nobody except me.  generally people use other expressions such as ''going for a poo'' or avoid the topic of poo altogether and simply talk about ''going to the toilet.''  when shokouh asks me what gracious means i realise that i don't know its exact definition, and when it comes to providing a definition for such words as colour and light, i have a good think but in the end have to admit that i am stumped.  probably the scientists are able to offer some description of what light is, but however hard i think about it i cannot escape the conclusion that it is a Total Mystery.   light is a relationship between the world and my eye and my brain.  it is a total mystery.

''look after her'' was the advice imparted to me by the irananians met at the rainbow.  of the hundred and fifty or so people there gathered, around forty of fifty were iranians.  it was surprising for shokouh to meet so many of her countryfolk, gathered here in neighbouring turkey.  for me meeting so many iranians was almost like travelling in iran, something which has been made impossible for me now that the law stipulates that any UK citizen entering iran must be accompanied by a guide everywhere they go.  i become familiar with the beautiful cadences of the farsi language, capable of communicating so much warmth and feeling.  citizens of iran have very limited travel opportunities, but the dedicated wayfarers and artists assembled at the rainbow do their best, taking their musical instruments and paintbrushes and soft vibrant energy round iraq, syria, lebanon, turkey, armenia and georgia.   could the annual peace in the middle east rainbow gathering take place in iran next year? perhaps if it was held in a very remote place. . . which are abundant in iran.  but if the authorities got any whiff of it. . . think of it: a hundred hippies hitching to the same spot.  not a chance says shokouh.

''look after her'' the iranians impressed upon me as we set off on the road to istanbul.

''i didn't feel safe'' said shokouh.

''otostoplu?  çok tehlikeli,'' say the turks on the street, ''otobus alın''

well, it is certainly a less comfortable and secure way of travelling but if we listened to everyone's dangerous, get-the-bus advice we would never have made the acquaintance of the angelic police officer on holiday from antalya who took us into the nearby town for us to stock up on fruit and vegetables and helped shokouh sort out the problems with her turkish sim card so she could call home and pacify her worried parents who haven't heard from their daughter for three days it is her first time outside the country.

how can you know someone enough to really want to meet with them without ever having met them? the question was posed to me more than once.  i am also surprised by how strongly we could feel our connection through computers, but somehow my initial request two years ago to surf shokouh's couch in tehran - when i still thought i would be cycling through tehran - made us instantly want to gradually communcate more and after facebook befriending and lots of skype chatting and me talking about coming to iran one day we have finally managed to meet in turkey.

like shokouh, i felt the nervousness of the man who took us along the road towards beyşehir as evening stole over the land.  it was nice of him to offer to host us.  it can be a tricky situation for the hitchhiker who stands on the road giving an open invitation for others to offer their help.  when their attention becomes unwanted the hitchhikers must pay attention and grab the right moment to say ''no.  leave us alone now''

''why don't you come home with me, drink some çay and have a wash?''

''very kind of you, but we actually love to sleep in the woods.  if you could just drop us here.  we can find a nice place to sleep near here and continue our journey tomorrow''

''okay, let me drive you.  i know a good place where you can sleep''

''no really, we can walk from here, there is no problem, you don't need to drive us . . .''

the man driving us does not know what he is doing.  every evening he drives from his workplace in seydişehir to his home in behşehir.  tonight he meets two intrepid young travellers and feels attracted to their slowly iterated desire to sleep in the woods.  slowly iterated because in turkish.  i do not understand everything, yet i annunciate calmly.  the tension is palpable in the air as we bump along a dirt track through the dark woods and finally find a flat place to camp.  he lights another cigarette and i think: ''when will he leave us alone? when will the cut off point be?'' we begin to gather wood for a fire.  at one point shokouh says: ''don't go far away from me carson.''  she feels his eyes on her.  she opens a packet of crisps and he sits on our camping mat next to her.  he begins to remove the twigs and leaves from her hair and then to hold out crisps for her to take straight in her mouth.  our polite conversation has now reached saturation point.   i have found out all the simple information my simple turkish can grasp:  he is a mechanic.  he is thirty five years old.  he lives alone.  he is not working tomorrow.  ''just make some çay and tell him we want to go to sleep'' says shokouh in english.  ''yes'' i say, ''but he says he doesn't want çay.''  i tell shokouh to come and sit at the other side of me and i am the only one who sips çay as the flames flicker thinly in our dark woods.  finally his sensitivity receptors inside him register something and he says:  ''sizi rahatsiz ediyormuyum?''    am i disturbing you?
sorry?
''rahatsiz. . . '' it takes a while for the meaning of his disturbing turkish word to sink in.

''yes.  we want to be alone now''

''tamam,'' he says stiffly, and walks off.  presently we hear his car engine rolling away through the woods and although nothing actually happened shokouh says that it will take a while for her to feel comfortable with unknown men again.

it is only after such uncomfortable encounters that the angelic nature of the policeman and the shining open hearted love of the rainbow family can be seen in perspective.  it is only after a day walking through the bazaars of istanbul looking for gifts for shokouh's family members that the deep peace of the pine forests and rocky hills near antalya are recalled with such fondness.  we are stray cats in istanbul.  we walk around and make friends with the cats in the street.  shokouh has the brainwave of staying in a hostel where we can shower and wash our clothes and leave our stuff in the room enabling us to walk around unencumbered during the day.  we find a place called stray cat hostel, a few minutes from the bospherous and the ferry crossing to kadaköy where we walk along the pier to the lighthouse and see the sky getting dark and orange behind the mosque-shaped skyline of the city.  shokouh tells me about the difficulty of having parents who expect a certain lifestyle of their daughter and i wonder about the rare wise approach of bringing a child into the world and loving them to the extent of according them the freedom to be themselves.

in the end we have succeeded in our bazaar search for natural green henna powder.  we have played our last game of backgammon and eaten our last balık ekmek fresh grilled fish salad sandwich by the boshporous.  i have spent the day walking around the streets barefeet due the heat and now at the airport i promise to shokouh that i recognise the importance of wearing footwear for protection.  it could have been her obstinacy in removing from my foot at the airport with a needle the tiny shard of glass which caused her to miss her 22:30 flight back to tehran.  it could likewise have been her full immersion in the artistic moment of covering my arm with her henna design.  it was certainly our unawareness that a half ten flight means that you have to check in at least an hour before.  ''shokouh it really doesn't matter about the glass shokouh it doesn't matter about finishing the henna you had better run your flight is leaving soon . . . ''

ah, the gates have already closed.

the taxi driver who took us to the nearest park that night didn't want to see us sleeping in the park and so he invited us back to his twentyfirst floor apartment to snatch a few hours sleep before heading out to work again the next day.

we arrive at the airport the next evening in plenty of time, but the plenty time is soon consumed in covering my other arm in another elaborate henna design and writing mohamed from iraq's name on his arm with henna and speaking to the woman from denmark waiting for her flight, and suddenly ''shokouh, you really better go now''

gasp: ''i have put my shirt and my headscarf in my airport luggage.  they won't let me enter tehran airport without them!''
''take my shirt,'' i say, ''and use my trousers as a headscarf'' and i run to the toilet to change out of my colourful cotton indian trousers, which made a no problem headscarf, shokouh later told me.

that night i walked along the big road out of istanbul and slept soundly in my hammock in some dark pine trees near a mosque.  i somehow felt that it was a safe place because it was close to the mosque.  in the morning i discovered that my camera and my knife had disappeared from my bags.  it is another reminder that the present moment is all that really matters.  some photos curiously can seem to be important - like the one of shokouh with her eyes closed and long black hair flowing beautifully in the wind as we sped down the rocky mountain road on the back of the pick-up truck, or the priceless close-up of the park cleaner in istanbul - but the simple experience of being alive now is infinitely more special.

travelling in turkey

there is something about this place that reminds me of sandend and sunnyside beach.

''no way'' says finlay,  ''does it ever get as hot as this in scotland?''

well no, but there is something about the scene- the path winding along the wild coast, the expanse of sea and sand . . . your first experience of the world - your early impressions of life - will always stay embedded in your memory bank.

finlay was just off the back of a month and a half of stravaiging around thrace - the 'european' part of turkey west of istanbul.  reputedly the friendliest.  ''being a foreigner here is like carrying a V.I.P badge everywhere you go,'' i observe and, right on cue, a group of youngsters hail us from across the street.

''hoş geldiniz!'' (welcome!)  the phrase on everybody's lips just waiting to issue forth upon the sighting of a V.I.P foreigner.

they want to take a photo of us on their mobile phones then we part with effusive well-wishes.  round the corner the men in the çay shop pour on us their welcome then insist (in tones that really brook no dissent) that we join them for çay and finlay says that his days often progressed in this fashion- simialar to a pubcrawl.  he would advance from one street to the next, from one çay shop to the next.

finlay has learnt a thing or two from the turks about backgammon strategy, including taking moves instantly - hardly stopping to think for an instant - and taking outrageous risks which not infrequently pay off.  as we are playing a small group of men gather round and give us catagorical advice on how we should play.  older men who are now retired and spend their days at the çay cafe take it in turns to talk to us.  we are privvy to an elaborate commentary on the mystery of the numeral zero from an old mathematics teacher, whose hastily scrawled equations now adorn my notebook.  finlay has mastered the basics of the turkish language and seems to be slowly following the commentary, but i only grasp the notion that the number zero is indeed a mystery.

i copy out the list of the most frequently asked questions which finlay has compiled, viz:
nerelisin?  where are you from? 
nasılsın?  how are you? 
oruç tutuyormusun?  are you observing the ramazam daytime fast?  
nasıl türkçe ogrendim?  how did you learn turkish?  
ne iş yapıyorsun?  what is your job? 
iskoçyada kaç para?  how much money (do you earn) in scotland?  
yalnızsın mı?  are you alone?  
evlimisin?  are you married?  
kardeşin var mı?  brothers or sisters?  
kaç tane?  how many?  
çay içermisin?  do you want some çay?  
yemegi yedin?  have you eaten? repeated like a litany at each new encounter, the best way to language learn; turkey: one big langauge school, with conversation practise readily available anywhere.

i feel that even a couple of days spent with finlay sufficed to significantly consolidate my smattering.  i think i absorbed passively some of his turkish language passion and intonation.

communication wasn't easy, however, yesterday when i was washing at the tap by lake burdur and the man from the van produced a bar of white soap.  ''cleanliness is the next to godliness'' was the nub of the message i perceived.  ''allah loves his children to be clean:   it would be better if you shaved your armpits and pubic hair . . . easier to clean'' it was one of those recurring situations wherein i listen attentively to my interlocutor and they end up opening up their heart to me and giving me their telephone number and wanting me to become a muslim.

''are you a christian?  you know jesus was a prophet but mohammed was the last prophet (the last prophet he was) and the message of the koran is Allah's message to humanıity and must absolutely be obeyed if you want to go to heaven.''
all this is very slowly explained to me, sitting in the shade of a tree on some cushions.  two sticks are produced.  the long stick represents heaven and is placed alongside the short stick, which represents hell.
''now, you are a good man, i can see'' abdullah tells me ''which would you choose . . . the short stick - pain (he produces his lighter and makes as if to burn his finger), or the long stick - a big smile, everlasting bliss with Allah (most of these words i have to imagine but they aren't hard to imagine because the discourse is an old one.)  at one point abdullah phones his friend who speaks english and confirms to me abdullah's message:  the koran says it, and therefore we must observe it, if we want to go to heaven: praying five times a day, journeying to mecca, no eating of pigs (dirty) or drinking of alcohol or having sex outwith wedlock, or smoking of tobacco . . . ''well, on this small point i fail'' admits abdullah as he rolls himself another cigarette.

''so, it is obvious you will choose heaven, isn't it?  repeat after me these arabic words, and you will become a muslim''

''well,'' i search for the few turkish words at my disposal, ''i think what is in a book is not as important as listening to allah in my heart.  for me, this moment now is all of life''

abdullah shakes his head and i have to take my present moment presence back to my camp in the woods and make çay over a fire and look up at the moon and cogitate about humanity's curious issues with the perception of Reality.





all of the written above verily took place in turkey in the summer of the year of our lord two thousand and fourteen.

O mohammad, did you have any idea what a big complicated ball of mental human experiences you were setting in motion when you wrote that book?

may Peace be upon all of us.